


poetry was never this real to me (i was too far gone)

by strifescloud



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M, genesis has feelings and gets surprised, post-DoC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 17:58:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7811680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strifescloud/pseuds/strifescloud
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was another poem about love, as many poets had written, trying to put the shattered beating of their heart into verse after another person had crawled inside and made a home there.<br/>Words had always been his, but even the ones on the page fell short when he thought about Cloud.</p>
            </blockquote>





	poetry was never this real to me (i was too far gone)

**Author's Note:**

> this is the same one that i put on tumblr a while back, just cleaned it up and added a few thingsss
> 
> idk i was in a similar Mood as when i wrote it so figured id bring it over here for posterity's sake or w/e

Genesis had never been sure of how to express love.

Certainly, he was well versed in using affection to manipulate people, tugging subtly on bonds of camaraderie and perceived friendship to maneuver others according to his whims. All it took was a friendly hand and a charming smile, making sure to keep his apathy from showing through the mako shine in his eyes. 

But love - the kind of love that moved mountains and shattered stars - had never needed his voice, and he had never asked for its expression in turn.

He’d hardly anticipated Cloud Strife.

Genesis's words had been biting when they’d first met, snarling and cruel to reflect the bitterness that was just barely holding him together after his fall. He’d circled around Cloud like a feral dog, snapping sharp syllables between his teeth, determined to crawl under the other man’s skin and _hurt_ , words tearing and making blood drip like ink onto shattered pavement.

He’d never struggled to give voice to spite - especially not now, when every exhale was fueled by defiance against all the deaths he was meant to have.

Cloud, he knew, was different.

They were more similar than he had guessed at first, two ex-SOLIDERS (or close enough, he amended) living in the aftermath of the human whirlwind that had been Zack Fair. They shared a backbone of steel and a stubborn, relentless endurance, refusing to die despite every obstacle in their way.

Both of their hardships had been plentiful, and Genesis may have been empathetic had he been anyone but himself.

Their differences, however, remained both vast and infuriating.

Cloud was taciturn, his defiance manifesting as a blank wall whenever Genesis came close to making him snap back a response. He killed monsters effortlessly, cutting down swathes of enemies - but his hands were gentle and kind when he returned home, all evidence of their strength restrained.

Sometimes he looked at Genesis and there was something approaching empathy in his eyes.

He hated it. (He didn’t deserve it.)

His words were more poisonous, those days. 

The effect on Cloud was no greater.

Time had always been a great healer of wounds, and though all his spite was still there below the surface he began to regain himself, words changing and shifting almost against his will. His barbs had bounced off Cloud’s skin so many times that their sharp edges had dulled, ineffectual, but rather than admit defeat he began to use others instead.

Softer words, like the ones he had used with his fellow SOLDIERs, in another life. He baited Cloud and his friends into an uneasy camaraderie, letting them think they had won, had worn him down into a dull echo of himself that could be let loose among the populace again.

His games were cut short when he reached into himself for poison and found it no longer at home within his chest. 

They _had_ changed him, he realised, though it was so slow and insidious that he had barely noticed it. His vitriol had been extinguished, and without it he was lost.

The fundamental core of himself, his identity which he had painfully extracted from the perceptions of others, was thankfully intact. He cajoled Cloud into locating a copy of LOVELESS for him with honeyed words and a smile, letting them all think they had him figured out when the expressions that crossed his face were as fake as the leather that bound the book Cloud pushed into his hands.

But he had been angry for so long, and now he simply _was_.

He let those words fall like stones from his lips one mournful day, and the terrible understanding in Cloud’s eyes forced him to look away.

Honestly was foolish, but Cloud seemed to draw each painful syllable of truth out of him without trying.

Genesis sought out the other man with increasing frequency, desperate to _understand,_ and he had the distinct feeling that Cloud appreciated the company despite never outright saying so.

Not that Cloud said much outright.

The realisation that he genuinely enjoyed Cloud’s company, not out of some desire to unravel the other man but simply because of Cloud as a person, made him stutter mid-sentence, composure broken for a brief second. Cloud tilted his head and Genesis worried that he’d been found out because Cloud’s smile had turned oddly affectionate, tolerant in a way that few had ever been, but when he answered he implied nothing of the sort.

He changed his words again, dusting off the ones he had used for Angeal and sometimes Sephiroth (his rivals, his friends, as lost to him now as the spite that drove them away) and though they sat heavy in his mouth they felt appropriate, for the man who had saved him almost without trying.

The realisation - so long after their initial meeting that it almost felt like someone else's life, someone else's mistakes - that he felt much more than friendship for Cloud made the book he was holding drop from numb fingertips.

He retrieved it slowly, fingers brushing over the black ink on the page. It was another poem about love, as many poets had written, trying to put the shattered beating of their heart into verse after another person had crawled inside and made a home there.

Words had always been _his_ , but even the ones on the page fell short when he thought about Cloud.

He’d never needed to express concepts such as _love_ , and now that he was struck so suddenly with the full force of it he was unsure of how to even try.

He buried every passing thought of adoration that flits through his head, terrified of his control slipping and letting one of them past his lips. Each one was completely insufficient at expressing the wonder that is Cloud - how his mere presence made Genesis’s heart beat as though it was going to crawl out of his chest and splay itself in front of the other man like some kind of macabre metaphor for the trust Genesis’s affections entailed.

Genesis grimaced, hoping Cloud hadn't noticed his distraction. His thoughts had turned muddled lately, consumed with finding the right expression. He briefly thought of telling Cloud how he would debase himself in a thousand ways just to hold his attention forever, then discarded it immediately.

He mouthed words as he read them, imagining how Cloud might react - _I fear no fate, for you are my fate, I want no world, for beautiful you are my world_  - but the thought of using others’ words rather than bringing his own into being made him feel something akin to shame.

In the end, the choice almost felt like it was taken from him.

He didn’t remember what started the argument, some petty disagreement that he still couldn’t simply let lie, escalating quickly because even without poison within him Genesis knows how to use words to cause pain.

Cloud reacted, anger growing in his tone as well, and Genesis wondered at how he was finally able to get under his skin not with words but with _presence_ , with friendship and love and being genuine at last.

He didn’t remember what started it but he did remember being asked why, why he stayed when he had once so viscerally wished to leave. 

“Because I love you,” he started, cursing his mouth for being faster than his brain, and then he couldn’t stop because all his words come tumbling out at once, “because simply being near you makes me feel like maybe this is the purpose She spared me for, because I would tear my still-beating heart from my unworthy chest if I thought for a second that it might give you satisfaction and the fact that it won’t only makes me love you more. Because I was merely a corpse that was pretending to be a man and you, just by being _you_ , brought me back to life. Because- because-”

He felt rather than heard his words dry up, clamping his mouth shut with a click and looking away because Cloud’s expression was so full of emotion and yet completely indiscernible. A hot rush of fear was building in his chest, choking him, rooting his limbs to the earth so he couldn't escape.

There was silence from Cloud, and the fear forced Genesis’s mouth open again, though he doesn’t look up.

“Nothing I say could be enough. I cannot hope to give voice to how I feel. Perhaps even the word love is not enough, but it is all that has been given to me. That’s why I’ve stayed, Cloud, but if you ask me to leave then I will.”

It was an ultimatum, and it was a terrible thing to ask, but Genesis had never been fair, and a dark voice that whispered in the back of his mind desperately wanted to see what Cloud will do.

“I…” Cloud finally said, slow and with an undefinable note of emotion, “I’m not so good with words. Not like you.”

“I think this has proven that my command of language has _entirely_  failed me at this point.” Genesis retorted, dark humour twisting his mouth into something like a smile. 

“Tifa always says that actions speak louder than words.” Cloud’s voice was softer, his accent thicker, and Genesis was so busy trying to unpack the meaning from that simple sentence that he almost missed the footsteps coming towards him.

He looked back to Cloud, far from ready to face rejection but steeling himself for it anyway. Cloud was close enough for Genesis to see himself in the reflection of the other man’s eyes, even through the mako glow, and the thought distracted him so much that even as Cloud’s hand reached up to him he didn’t expect the kiss that followed.

It was everything and nothing like he expected. Cloud was soft, the brush of his hand against Genesis’s cheek painfully gentle in a way that made his heart skip a beat, but there was a thread of steel tangible in every motion that only made his heart ache more.

“All this time,” Cloud breathed when they broke apart, “and I never said, I didn’t think you’d-”

This time it was Genesis that leant forward, swallowing the rest of his words, because maybe they were more similar than either of them had known.

In the end, it was not perfect. It wasn’t like in poems, where love is a tangible force that can shape worlds and ruin galaxies. But while perfection is unattainable, they both felt that their tangled world had come close.

Cloud smiled the first time Genesis ended his sentence with _my dear_ , felt his breath catch at the first  _beloved_ , tightened his grip on the other’s hand when he was answered with a simple _yes, my love._

Genesis would sometimes kiss his hand, the simple act filled with a tenderness that nearly brought him to his knees.

Cloud let his hand linger on the other’s arm, made sure that Genesis’s coffee is perfect every morning, went out of his way to simply exist in each other’s space even when there was nothing to be said.

He murmured his first _I love you_  into the night air and heard Genesis’s breath stutter, let him bury his face into Cloud’s shoulder and wrap his arms around his waist as Cloud repeated the phrase into his ear.

Genesis still wasn’t sure how to express love. He let terms of endearment fall from his lips as often as he can, urged Cloud to return soon whenever they part, replied  _I love you too_  with all the sincerity he has ever known, and still it was not enough.

He wasn’t sure how to express love, but he was grateful for every opportunity he now had to _try_.

**Author's Note:**

> and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
> 
> i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)  
> \-----------------  
> title from say anything’s I Will Never Write An Obligatory Song About Being On The Road And Missing Someone  
> poetry excerpt from i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) by e.e. cummings
> 
> im always up for a chat at strifescloud.tumblr.com or on twitter as @strifesodos  
> thanksssss <333333333


End file.
